Community Right to Bid, US style….

In Britain, there’s now a Community Right to Bid, as we highlighted recently here. It’s a rather limited right but in the States it seems some people have cut to the chase without bothering to wait for a Localism Act or a Big Society.

The Archaeological Conservancy is a “national non-profit organization dedicated to acquiring and preserving the best of our nation’s remaining archaeological sites“.

They have acquired more than 400 endangered sites in 41 states across America and they explain their aims very well:“Every day, prehistoric and historic archaeological sites in the United States are lost forever – along with the precious information they contain. Modern-day looters use backhoes and bulldozers to recover artifacts for the international market. Urban development and agricultural methods such as land leveling and topsoil mining destroy ancient sites. The Conservancy protects these sites by acquiring the land on which they rest, preserving them for posterity.”

Of course, that takes loads of money. Still, if The Archaeological Conservancy has some then bearing in mind Britain’s prehistory is also theirs, we have a lot of sites we’d like to recommend they consider buying. The setting of the Thornborough Henges is still being annihilated daily! Perhaps Tarmac PLC will give them a discount?